Synthetic marijuana, commonly referred to as "spike" or "spice", has caused many cases of hospitalizations, particularly in Syracuse, NY, that the city has been dubbed as "Spike Nation," based on a special report by The New York Times.
The NYT Magazine feature put the spotlight on the rise of use and abuse of spike during spring, specifically in Syracuse, where people reportedly threw violent, animal-like fits toward emergency responders.
In his story, he recounts how 24-year-old Ethan Darbee, a paramedic from Syracuse, saw firsthand how an unconscious man reportedly on spike rose up from the stretcher, started growling then attacked him in April.
On that same evening, another female responder witnessed how a woman "high on spike" reacted so violently, that she had to be sedated.
The stories Featherstone described in his account was scary enough, but that's not the worst part--not knowing what to do about the spike outbreak is.
Synthetic marijuana is nothing like marijuana—it's a completely different chemical makeup. According to Featherstone in an interview with NPR, the drug may look like marijuana and people use it like how they would with a joint, but the effects produced are different.
Featherstone saw that those who use the drug mainly come from the poor and homeless communities who have psychiatric problems.
The reason the drug is popularly used is because it is cheap, it produces a high, and most importantly, it doesn't yield a positive result in drug tests.
In Syracuse, prosecutors have threatened to shut down any outlets caught selling spice, but this will only send the market underground and not affect the overdose rate, which Featherstone found to have decreased mysteriously following the attack on Darbee.
The Times reporter said the decline in the spike usage rate may be because users are being more careful or doctors do not report cases more often.
In response to the city's spike crisis, prosecutors are improving on their efforts to prohibit synthetic drugs by targeting kingpins.
Carla Freedman, one of the prosecutors, told The Times that if they shut down one shop after another, it's basically "putting your finger in the dike."
"If you take out the manufacturer and shut his business down, you stop production for a while," she added.
The problem with spike is not only limited to Syracuse. According to Syracuse.com, authorities said that spike outbreak extends beyond NYC, with cases reported in Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.
